Would you visit a restaurant with bad or no reviews at all? No, obviously.
We humans are social animals. We always check other people’s reviews before checking out a new place, item, food, or whatever. This is simply human nature.
Customers fear being mistaken before making any major decisions, and that is why they feel safe around the social crowd, the virtual crowd. Hence, you must know the importance of social image.
Having total control of your eCommerce website is Shopify’s biggest advantage. But this is where the real trouble starts. Because your newly launched website has no reviews, even if a person needs to try out your products, they will start to have trust issues and ultimately drop their idea of trying your business, resulting in low traffic and conversion rates.
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The Ultimate Checklist for Launching Your Shopify Online Store
In this blog, we will learn about the tactics – how to benefit your Shopify store with solid social proof.
What Does Social Proof Mean?
Social proof refers to the psychological phenomenon where people look to the actions and behaviors of others to determine the appropriate behavior in a given situation. In other words, when people are uncertain about how to act or make decisions, they often rely on the actions and opinions of others as a guide.
Social proof is often utilized in digital marketing and advertising strategies to influence consumer behavior. Businesses leverage customer testimonials, user-generated content, and influencer endorsements to create trust and credibility around their products or services. Additionally, social proof can impact a wide range of decisions, from what restaurant to eat at to which political candidate to support.
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It’s important to note that while social proof can be a valuable decision-making heuristic, it’s not always the most accurate or rational way to make choices. People may sometimes follow the crowd even when the crowd is wrong, and individual circumstances and preferences may not align with the majority’s choices.
How to leverage the Social Proof store?
Now that you know social proof, let’s get to the tactics to leverage social proof.
1. Display customer insights and reviews
Investment in time and effort gives the best return. If you think your job is done by investing in building a Shopify website, then you are wrong because your job is not done here. You need to improve customer service to gain positive reviews, as these testimonials are the ones visitors check first after landing on your website.
While focusing on positive reviews, you must not forget to work on the negative ones. You must learn a fact before entering the eCommerce world, which is the majority of happy customers do not bother to share their experience, unsatisfied customers will be the first ones to post their experience, and negative reviews are the loudest of all other reviews. So, better work on the negative ones to convert them into positive ones.
2. Use user-generated content
User-generated content holds remarkable trustworthiness and credibility, whether it originates from ordinary consumers or influential figures. User-generated content overtakes nearly any other content you can curate for your business. When you display individuals utilizing your merchandise or unveiling your offerings, you automatically cultivate a sense of reliability and prestige among your visitors.
Now, the pivotal question arises: How precisely can you achieve this? Leverage your interconnected social feeds to spotlight positive feedback from influencers and everyday shoppers. This strategic move effectively magnifies the positive sentiments associated with your products and solutions. Embedding these feeds presents countless possibilities for boosting your brand’s popularity.
3. Use human images on your website
Using real-life human images is equally important as using high-resolution images on your website pages. However, the impact human images will have on visitors’ minds will be much more than that of product images. Always remember that people connect with people. Displaying real human images or videos with genuine emotions will help visitors make buying decisions.
Even extensive industry A/B testing consistently confirms that human faces hold a unique power to attract visitors. According to a survey, adding relatable faces to landing pages can increase conversions by around 50%. Also, today’s audiences lean towards natural, candid photos over overly polished corporate images. Authenticity trumps slickness, as raw-looking photography establishes a stronger and more trustworthy connection with viewers.
4. Flaunt your best-selling products
Every eCommerce website has a separate section of their best performing and best-selling products. Although showcasing your best-selling products is not the most effective tactic for improving your social proof, but it does give visitors a sense of trust that, yes, there are customers who trust your products and your business.
You can create a whole different section for showcasing your best-selling products and also give different names to these sections, like “Our Trending Product”, “ Our Best-Sellers”, “Our Best Performing Products”, etc. and place them on different website pages that your best-sellers are easily visible to your visitors.
5. Cover FAQs
Covering frequently asked questions of your previous customers stimulates the feel of a community discussion, and by showing that others have had similar questions and concerns that were properly addressed, the Q&A format leverages the psychological power of social proof.
A crucial factor lies in the alignment of the questions you choose to address with the authentic concerns of your customers. An effective method to generate ideas for this alignment involves delving into your past reviews or analyzing your competitors’ feedback.
Furthermore, if you have encountered unfavorable reviews highlighting aspects that failed to meet customer expectations, it’s advantageous to tackle these concerns in this format transparently. By meticulously framing expectations during this preliminary stage, you pave the way for enhanced customer experiences, subsequently fostering more positive reviews in the future.
Power of Social Proof
Social proof is undoubtedly the most important factor; no eCommerce admin should miss out.
These were the best and most basic tactics a newbie Shopify and well-established businesses can use. Besides these points, you can also use your customers’ photos with your product, trust badges, Google reviews and reviews from other platforms like Trustpilot, Clutch, etc.
Adding these social proofs is the best way to win over visitors’ trust, increase store traffic, and boost conversion rates.
This was it. Hope you found the blog informative. If you need guidance regarding your Shoopify store, contact us or text us via our official Facebook page.
Happy Shopifying!!!
